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Newly updated US Code Titles 15-18

uscode.jpgOur friends from the Law Revision Counsel’s Office of the House of Representatives just gave us updated versions of US Code Titles 15-18, current to January of 2009 (that’s why you want to use the update feature at the right whenever you’re doing Code research).  They’re on the LII US Code site: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode

Bruce at Stanford

tomatstanford.jpgWednesday, LII Director Tom Bruce did a guest appearance in Paul Lomio‘s Advanced Legal Research class at the Stanford Law School.  Just like the substitute teachers we had in middle school, Bruce attempted to cover his ignorance of the subject by entertaining the class with movies:  West’s recent marketing piece featuring Bob Berring, and a sneak preview of a new 3-minute video describing the LII’s mission and history (and it’s pretty good, if we do say so ourselves).  A lively discussion of the issues raised by these two very different ideas about why we have legal information services and who uses them ensued.  Students know a lot….

If you’re interested in these issues, you might want to look at the public discussion on slaw.ca (a bit hard to find all of it in one place), at Bruce’s response here, and at an earlier blog post responding to the same arguments from West employee Dan Dabney.   On YouTube, you can also find videos describing the 17-year history of the “volunteer” LII movement worldwide (1,2,3) featuring the Canadian and Australian LIIs — de facto national resources for law in their respective countries.

LII in SFO

Last night, LII Director Tom Bruce met with an assortment of Cornell alums for a lively discussion of the ways in which public access to legal information is affecting the legal profession and the relationships between lawyers and clients.  Our friends from Justia.com came along.  Interest was high and interaction lively.

A special shout-out to Mike Margolis and Margolis and Tisman, LLP for hosting this event.  We are hoping to show up in the Bay Area twice a year, with events and discussions open to all our friends,  so let us know if you’d be interested in attending.

From the LII mailbag

dutch.jpgIn today’s correspondence:

I am an instructor in an international business management program at a university in The Netherlands.  I teach business courses and business-context English courses mostly to German and Dutch students.

May I use the Wex bankruptcy (and perhaps other) articles as part of a free handout distributed to students in my English lessons?  I am doing a module on financial issues (the crisis and related aspects) and want to use bankruptcy and related issues, (and most of all the language used to present these topics) as backdrop material to teach fluency in vocabulary, grammar, and so forth, as well as to introduce them to financial issues.

And as always we’re happy to help….